Fluoropolymers resins have exceptional stability to light, heat, solvents, chemical attack and electrical stresses, conferring desirable properties to articles made from these polymers or substrates coated with films of the polymers. Such resins, especially perfluoropolymer resins, are known for their low surface energy and release/non-stick characteristics. Mechanical properties such as abrasion resistance can be improved by incorporating additives into these resins and thereby extending their service life, but such addition results in diminishing the release properties of the polymers.
One important application for fluoropolymers is in electrostatographic reproduction wherein electrostatically charged toner is fused to a receiver (e.g., paper or film) making visible a latent electrostatic image. The use of fluoropolymer resin film coatings on heated metal fuser rolls provides a heat resistant polymer film having a release surface that prevents the sticking of toner to the fuser roll and allows more toner to affix to the receiver for production of high quality printed images. The heated fuser roll is heated to a high temperature, usually at about 200° C., to melt the toner particles electrostatically deposited on a receiver and then releases the resultant molten image as it adheres to the receiver. If molten toner particles stay adhered to the fuser roll, they can deposit on a later supplied receiver to provide an undesired image. Thus, the fuser roll coating application of fluoropolymer resin embodies a critical requirement for faithfully releasing molten toner, which by its molten nature and need to stick to the receiver is a sticky material. While fluoropolymer resin coating has been successfully used in this application, the coating suffers from the shortcoming of being abraded away both by the receivers sequentially contacting the fuser roll and even more severely by the picker fingers that rub against the fuser roll surface to remove a receiver from the fuser roll. The problem is how to increase the abrasion resistance of the coating without adversely affecting its release property.